Recipes: Spanner crab omelette with sriracha

Darren Robertson and Mark LaBrooy

This is a fantastic Sunday brunch dish. The sriracha is sweet and spicy and complements the spanner crab beautifully along with the fresh citrus-y salad. This sriracha needs to be made ahead and may sound time-consuming but it is very simple and this recipe will leave you with about one litre of extra sriracha that can be used in anything from a fish taco to a pasta sauce.

Place the coriander, shallots, and red onion in a medium- sized bowl. Combine the lemon juice and fish sauce and dress the salad before setting aside.

Take a large mixing bowl and add the whisked eggs. Then take a large heavyset frying pan and place on high heat, add the sesame oil and olive oil. When the frying pan is almost at smoke point, add the crab. Cook for 45 seconds to one minute. Add the eggs to the pan and every 10 seconds, push the egg that has been cooked towards the centre of the frying pan, each time scraping along the bottom of the pan. Season with salt and pepper and place on serving dish.

To serve, drizzle the omelette with the sriracha. Pile the salad over the top of the egg scramble and sprinkle with the toasted cashews and fried shallots.

Serves 4

Sriracha

5L water (preferably unchlorinated)

250g salt

1kg long red chillies

1 bulb garlic, peeled

300ml apple cider vinegar

200g-300g brown sugar

Place the water and the salt in a large container. Mix well to dissolve the salt. Add the whole chillies and stir well. Cover with plastic wrap and a lid and set aside for 10 days. Each morning, open the container and give it a good stir. After 10 days, drain the chillies and remove the stems. Blitz in a food processor with the garlic, vinegar and sugar. Add more sugar and salt to taste if needed. Transfer to sterilised jars and store in the fridge. Sriracha will keep for up to 12 months.

Tip:

Be sure not to overcook the crab. Stir it constantly before adding the egg. But once the egg is added, be patient, pushing the cooked egg to the centre of the frying pan will allow the runny egg to fill the places in the base of the frying pan that you have just created. If you are too impatient in this step, it will end up looking like scrambled eggs from the hotel buffet, rather than fluffy ribbons.